William Wordsworth- A Lyric Poet

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Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquility. – William Wordsworth William Wordsworth, a British poet, credited as the founder of English Romantic Movement is well known for his Lyrical Ballads, a joint publication along with Samuel Taylor Coleridge. The magnificent landscape deeply affected Wordsworth’s imagination and gave him love of nature which is evident in his poetry. He believed that poetry should be written in the common language rather than fanciful dictions that were then considered “poetic”. He argued that poetry should offer access to the emotions contained in memory and believed that the first principle of poetry should be pleasure through a rhythmic and beautiful expression of feeling. Wordsworth’s style is plain-spoken and easy to understand. Many of Wordsworth’s poems (including masterpieces such as “Tintern Abbey” and the “Intimations of Immortality” ode) deal with the memories of childhood. His greatest work is The Prelude, a semi-autobiographical poem of his early years. Wordsworth became Britain’s Poet Laureate in 1843.